for One Another

High school is an important time for many youths, and the Liberty Union High School District has helped teenagers and young adults since 1902.

The district itself was a government entity before any of the nearby towns, including Brentwood and Oakley, according to the current Superintendent Eric Volta.

Since then, they have continued to not only help students succeed but also help build a stronger community, local officials say.

The district makes up a third of Contra Costa County and has five schools under its umbrella: Liberty, Freedom, Heritage, Independence, and La Paloma.

Improvements continue to be made to the current campus sites to accommodate the area’s increasing population.

These improvements include updating much of what is offered at each school. For example, the ongoing construction in the front of Liberty will be the new administration building. Volta said that the campus has not had one since 1963. In 2021, Freedom opened its new theater building, which has a room for choir, and a separate building for a class that introduces students to the construction trade. Heritage is adding 12 classrooms, according to Volta.

Each school in the district has a few buildings that have been named after important people from the history of the town. One of the most recent of these dedications took place this year at Liberty and changed what many referred to as simply “New Gym” to the Roy J. Ghiggeri Gymnasium.

He worked within the department for many years as a teacher, administrator, and board member. “If you take his years of service to the district as an employee or board member,” said Volta, “it was 48 straight years -- for half a century.”

The oldest of the high schools is Liberty, founded in 1902. Its first recorded number of students was 33 in 1904, which can be seen in a centennial booklet released in 2002. Its first recorded graduating class was 1906 with nine graduates, which can be found in the same booklet. On Aug. 25, 1902, the Liberty Union HIgh School opened with two teachers – Isaac Wright and Beatrice Hagmayer. Wright also was principal for the first year. The next official principal - Prof. George C. Russell, was hired in 1903.

Freedom was founded in 1996 with 585 students, and opened on the Liberty campus for the first three quarters of the year until their campus was finished at the end of that year. When it opened, Judy Regan was the principal.

The first graduating class was in 1999 with 150 seniors.

Heritage was opened in 2005 with 716 students, and the first graduating class was in 2008 with 293 seniors. In the first year of both Freedom and Heritage, both schools were open only to the freshman and sophomore classes of those respective years unless incoming juniors chose to attend them. The school’s first principal was Andy Parsons.

While all three of these high schools have continued to grow with further development, Volta explained how enrollment numbers have continued to be skewed in favor of Liberty and Heritage. These two schools have always had more students than Freedom, and this trend is likely to continue, Volta said.

Independence is considered an alternative school, according to the California Department of Education and officially opened in 1999. Before, it was a program offered to students through both Liberty and Freedom

La Paloma is the district’s continuation school, which opened in 1968. Being an alternative high school, it has always had a smaller number of students and facilities.

With these schools and the district rooted within the community, Volta outlined what he hopes to impart to all those that go through the district. “If there is one thing that I can preach,” said Volta “is a caring community for one another.”